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It hadn’t been intentional. But nothing of this nature ever is. One moment, she had been hugging her friend, her advisor, after a moment of startling vulnerability.
The next, Mysaria’s lips had been ghosting her neck, her dark hair smelling like lilac and the sea, tickling her cheek. She closed her eyes and had relished the feeling. Closed her eyes and pretended, as Mysaria’s lips claimed hers with a gentle tentativeness, that it was not, in fact, Mysaria.
And, gods damn her, she hadn’t even pretended that it was Daemon.
Their kiss was hungry, rushed. All clashing teeth and roaming tongues. Rhaenyra’s hands pulled Mysaria’s slight frame closer by her hips, drowning in the feeling of her lips, her mouth, so heady to taste, to take. It was startling, refreshing, and Rhaenyra would be a liar if she said she didn’t enjoy it.
And yet, it was not the woman before her that she imagined in this desperate embrace. It was one of auburn hair and deep, honeyed eyes. A woman she could never have again, because she was already gone.
Rhaenyra was lost, and she did not know the way.
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Far away, in King’s Landing, Alicent Hightower sat at her son’s bedside.
Left adrift in this cruel sea of men at war, where once, she’d had a place. Albeit small, a place. And now, she was left empty-handed, wondering what it was all for.
Had it been worth it, now, to push the only friend she’d ever had away from her? To feed the vitriol between them with her venomed words? The men who belittled her, who replaced her, mattered little when she considered that woman across the bay. It was resentment and anger, twin emotions, that had caused this rift between them.
Her eyes were no longer trained on her son, but rather out the window, over that sweeping expanse of blue. Her heart, long since shriveled and darkened, gave a startling and painful squeeze. She clutched her chest, face burning with tears that she couldn’t quite stop from falling. Once, she had claimed her anger towards that silver-haired woman was for the sake of her children. For fear that they would be harmed.
But now, stripped of her position from court and shamed as she was, she realized it had been her own aching heart that fueled the venom. She thought of that woman in the Sept, pleading with her for peace. And she remembered, like an aching wound yet to be healed, the scorn with which such an offer was met. She turned her burning eyes back to her son, her boy, Aegon.
No, it had not been worth it.
Alicent rested her hand on Aegon’s shoulder, bowing her head as her breathing stuttered. A gaping hole opened in her chest. Not for her son, though she should pretend it was so.
And yet it was not her son before her that she imagined losing. It was a woman of silver and sad, violet eyes. A woman she could never have again, because she was already gone.
Alicent was lost, and she did not know the way.